As widely known by professionals involved in the industry and trade of equipment, devices and accessories of lighting, the filaments of incandescent lamps are usually made of tungsten, a metal that melts only when subjected to a very high temperature (3,422° C.).
To prevent that the filaments come into combustion and quickly burnout, all the air is removed from the bulb and the bulb is filled with a mixture of inert gases, nitrogen and argon or krypton.
Incandescent lamps operate at low pressures and emit light energy and a lot of heat by an infrared radiation component.
These lamps demand high consumption of electric energy and additionally they work at very high temperatures, which partly reflect on its outer body, and this type of lamp also has a very short lifetime (1,000 hours).
Fluorescent lamps, unlike filament lamps, have an improved efficiency as they emit higher electromagnetic energy in the form of light than heat (infrared), and they are more economical in addition to being cold.
Fluorescent lamps operate similarly to neon gas discharge tubes, having a pair of electrodes at each end. The glass tube is covered with a phosphorescent material that, when excited by ultraviolet radiation generated by ionization of the gases, produces visible light.
Fluorescent lamps are internally filled with inert gases at low pressure, and the most common ones use argon. Besides the phosphor coverage, there are filament-shaped electrodes at their ends and mercury. Its function is to preheat the inside of the glass tube to reduce the voltage required for ionization, starting the process of bombardment by positive ions of gas in the tube.
When the internal composition is based on mercury vapor, a voltage gradient of a few hundred volts needs to be applied while at the same time the ends are heated up. During the ionic discharge, and resulting emission of U.V. light that excites the phosphor wall of the glass tube, there is no need for the high voltage between the ends of the tube anymore, so the high voltage is reduced to less than 100 V in the case of low power lamps and up to 175 V in the case of high power lamps.
The voltage applied to the gas triggers the emission of large amounts of U.V. radiation in the wavelength of the mercury emission. This emission is converted into visible light by the phosphor layer which, depending on the mixture applied, defines the hue of the emitted color.
To be started, a fluorescent lamp needs two extra accessories, namely a starter, which is nothing more than a bi-stable thermal relay and a ballast, which is a coil that generates the high voltage required to start and control the current drawn by the lamp.
The starter works only at the ignition of the lamp, being off all the rest of the time, it can even be removed from the circuit and the lamp remains on.
The lighting implemented through LEDs or light emitting diodes was used at the beginning with a basic functionality, the lighting of locations and instruments where its use was more convenient than a traditional lamp.
Being increasingly used in microelectronic products as a flag for warnings, it can also be found with larger dimensions, as in some models of traffic lights. It is also widely used in LED panels, LED curtains and LED tracks, including household lamps.
Nowadays LED lamps are widely used in homes, offices, etc., being provided with greater luminescence, lower work temperatures and higher lifetime compared to other types of lamps of the consumer market.
Conventional LED lamps designed for home use have an adequate functionality and useful life, however they have in their composition and assembly an amount of aluminum mass which raises its own weight and increases the amount of material required for its production, thereby increasing its cost.
Another aspect that can be improved relates to the difficulty of recycling of the materials from which a conventional LED lamp is composed.